HERvotes: America’s Supposed War on Religion and the Real War on Birth Control

Last week, Sen. Ray Blunt (R-Mo.) sought to attach a conscience clause to a transportation bill in an effort to overturn the President’s birth control mandate. However, Democrats managed to block the amendment. Subsequently Blunt said he would “be back“ with the amendment in search of another bill to attach it to. You can read amendment’s full text here.

NARAL Pro-Choice does a good job of delivering the bottom line of what Blunt’s amendment would do:

The amendment allows insurers to refuse coverage of any essential health service to which they might claim a “moral” objection, including HIV treatment, alcohol and other substance-abuse counseling, in-vitro services for same-sex couples, STI counseling, prenatal care for single women, and mental-health care. Insurers could refuse to cover these services for religious or moral reasons, or if the purchaser of the plan claimed the benefit is contrary to its religious or moral convictions.

Since Blunt was thwarted, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) has now introduced a so-called “Religious Freedom Restoration Act.” (The fact that free exercise of religion is already well-protected makes no difference.)

These things are nothing new. The religious right has been trying to implement Religious Freedom Restoration Acts (RFRA) on the state level for some time. These bills and resulting laws bestow special privileges to religious groups, allowing one, as an example, to turn away a gay couple from the cake shop you run if you find their lifestyle morally reprehensible based on a “firmly held” religious belief.

My go-to on all things RFRA is Marci Hamilton, who holds the Paul R. Verkuil Chair in Public Law at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, Yeshiva University, where she is the founding Director of the Intellectual Property Law Program. Hamilton is also the author of God vs. the Gavel and a constitutional expert in church-state relations. In a 2010 article, Hamilton lays it out:

These laws [state RFRAs] demand the glare of the spotlight and deserve harsh public scrutiny, for these new RFRAs–backed by Focus on the Family and the Catholic Bishops, among others–go even further than their predecessors.

In Louisiana, Colorado, and North Dakota, religious lobbyists have pushed, or are now pushing, for a law that would work as follows: Religious actors would simply have to prove that the law they are challenging imposes “a burden”–meaning even the most de minimis burden–on them. If they meet that low standard of proof, then the government must prove that the law at issue serves a compelling interest and constitutes the least restrictive means of doing so. If the government does not meet this difficult standard of proof, the law cannot be applied to the religious actor. So conduct that is remotely related to religious beliefs or indirectly involves religious doctrine could be enough to overcome important laws.

This is overreaching of the rankest kind–and it is why I am calling these new RFRAs “extreme RFRAs.”

This article is a must read to truly understand the devastating impact “extreme RFRAs” will have on women’s reproductive rights, LGBTQ rights and the rights of every individual who doesn’t believe a certain way.

Several states have tried this recently. One was introduced in Iowa last year. It was of course supported (I would go so far to say authored) by the local Focus on the Family affiliate and powerful religio-political group The FAMiLY Leader.

Due to a swift and public outcry by LGBT, women’s rights activists and temperate religious organizations the measure was dropped almost immediately. The wording in the Iowa bill was so broad that it would allow a person to deny, say, housing to a single mother since her child was conceived out of wedlock, based on the dictates of the landlord’s faith.

Both Colorado and North Dakota sought to get a RFRA placed on the ballot with the aid of the local Focus on the Family groups and the Catholic Conference. They failed to obtain the required number of signatures to put it to a popular vote.

Those of us who prize religious freedom were heartened when Obama took office looking forward to an end to the corrosive funding of faith-based organizations. Obama did abolish religious-based abstinence-only education funding (though it was subsequently re-upped through a Republican amendment to the Affordable Healthcare Act) but left intact a loophole allowing religious organizations to discriminate in hiring, an abusive luxury afforded no one else.

Taxpayer money available via numerous executive branch agencies continues to flow to religious and “faith-based” organizations, of which Catholic hospitals are arguably the largest beneficiaries. The idea that somehow Christians are under siege in this country is frankly ludicrous. An atheist kid asking that a prayer on a wall in her public school be covered isn’t an attack on religion. People expressing outrage over prayer creeping into public schools is not a war on religious freedom. At least now that Obama has made an accommodation for the Catholics so that they can get over the contraception insurance issue, that should put that religious war to rest. Wait, I spoke too soon!

So what then of this birth control nonsense? Is it really about protecting the faithful? Supporters of the RFRA claim that they are seeking to protect religious freedom. They dig up quotes from our long dead founders and leverage our president as “other” as proof they must act and act quickly! A lawyer at the ACLU told me once (as we were lamenting the erosion of the wall of separation) that RFRAs and conscience clauses can be used by a religious organization (clarion call by the religious-right) as a sword or a shield. It is clear they are using it as a sword.

This has never been about “religious freedom”. It’s about trying to make everyone follow THEIR religion (which if you look closely isn’t exactly following Christ or the Bible – at least it’s sure not the version of either that I learned on my own or through the theology classes required to accompany my ex in a church plant). Actually it’s doubly troubling because it’s about making everyone follow their religion, because doing so is actually doing to the rest of us what they claim will be done to them if they don’t get their way with the RFRA. THEY will have the freedom to follow THEIR religion as they see fit – which could have been done by providing standard health care and simply not opting to use such procedures themselves. WE in the rest of the population will have neither full access to health care nor religious freedom if they get their way. Plus, of course, it would be a huge step backwards specifically in women’s rights. One of the reasons I left the organized church was because of people like my ex who really emphasized the submissive wife, how she should be home mothering children, doing – and being – exactly what her husband wants. It wouldn’t surprise me too much if decreased accessibility to birth control (and these other types of health care) lead to a correlating increase in domestic violence.

Also, it’s worth noting that from an employer point of view, the long standing rule or standard for where religion conflicts with jobs (such as where they’re wanting the right for pharmacists to not provide any medication that goes against their beliefs and the same for doctors and such) is that if you cannot do the main duties of your job – such as fill prescriptions as a pharmacist or treat mental illness as a doctor (considering in most states primary care doctors now treat the majority of mental illness patients) or provide abortion if you’re an ob/gyn (and especially at bare minimum to mothers where her life is at risk such as ectopic pregnancies), you can be considered unable to do your job and can be terminated.

Oh, and you left WA off your list. Pharmacists here have also long been lobbying for a law like you mention. They want it to be “good enough” that they do things like post a sign where the nearest place to get your medications they won’t fill would be – even if their pharmacy is in the middle of nowhere and the “nearest place” is 25 or more miles away each direction.

What’s it going to take for those with penises and sperm to quit trying to make decisions for those with vaginas, uteruses, and eggs? Funny how there’s been no push for misdemeanor charges against those committing nocturnal emissions, after all if there was an egg nearby that sperm might have inseminated it.
Oh, and by the way, who’s religious freedom is being infringed upon when my state legislature prays to God and Jesus before beginning their session each day?
(sarcasm intentional)